The Neverending Story
by Time's Quill
Summary: Death comes to all men. This is true for everyone, even him. It's what comes next that differentiates him from the rest of the world's population. He is never allowed to fly to his natural resting place after death; instead, his soul is always caught by the hand of the Goddesses and stored until evil next arises in the land. He will never find peace, even if the world were to end.


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The Neverending Story

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If the world was destroyed, would he still exist?

It was a stupid question, but it still made him think. The stump underneath his bum was hard and firm, and the forest glade around him was caught in silent serenity. The leaves of the trees ringing the clearing swayed in harmony, the grass rippled from a quiet wind, and the birds sang their far-off songs with an innocence that denied all misfortune and disaster. It was the kind of place that promised to exist forever, a place that seemed untouched by the march of both time and men.

But he knew differently. Appearances were deceiving; this clearing had only existed for a couple hundred years. In times past, there had been a village here. A ranch village, to be exact. Horses had trampled the ground underfoot once, the beating of their hoods as never-ending as the swaying of the leaves. The people that had lived here had spent their lives in the calm belief that their way of life would continue long past their bones had rotted away.

He plucked a flower from the earth and studied its petals. They had been wrong, of course. Demons had destroyed that town; they had burnt it to the ground as carelessly as he had just pulled up the flower. He slowly picked the petals from the purple weed. He had destroyed the demons and their captain. They had been but one unit in a larger army, an army that had tried to wipe the Goddesses' people from the earth. Instead, they had all been destroyed. Many of them had fallen to his blade, and when he had destroyed their commander, the rest had disintegrated into ash.

He cast the empty stem away from him. It landed in the grass, its resting place unmarked and unremembered. That was many lifetimes ago, of course. Once the demons had been banished from the earth, he had died. That time, he had been crushed by a loose boulder as he travelled across a mountain. His most recent death had involved a bad batch of berries. He had fallen from poison within the hour. Every time, his passing had been due to unnatural causes. He had never died a natural death, and Link thought he knew why. If he ever were to die from natural causes, his soul would be free to fly its natural resting place in Heaven. As it were, his soul had been repeatedly, violently ripped from his body. Easy enough for the Goddesses to catch and put in their little receptacle in the Sacred Realms. He had spent countless years in a state of dreamless sleep, waiting for the Goddesses to release him back into the world.

He had hoped, once, that the Goddesses would let him go. That he would do his good and they would reward him with everlasting peace. That he would be reunited with all the friends and family he had left behind in his endless reincarnations. That hope had died more than a century ago. He knew now that they would never release him. Him, their Champion. Him, their defender of good, the innocent, and the world in general. He was the ultimate hero, the perfect fighter, a man who was driven to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. The Golden Goddesses would never let him go, because if they did, what would happen the next time evil arose? What if there was no living mortal to give the Master Sword to and point in the right direction? The world would be lost, their creation destroyed, and the people forever dead. They couldn't call him back from Heaven; they had power only in the world of the living.

He picked a new flower and began to pull apart its petals again. If the world was destroyed, would he still exist? The destruction of the earth would surely count as a 'violent death.' His soul would be ripped from his body, again, and the Goddesses would surely catch it and store it for a divine rainy day. Even if this world was destroyed, the Goddesses would surely create a new one. They had made the world of Hyrule, after all, and their power was virtually unlimited. They would keep their precious Champion for that new world. He would never be free. Never. He would continue this never-ending cycle of birth, battle, and death. Again and again he would be reborn, again and again he would face overwhelming odds, and again and again he would be killed off once his task was finished.

If the world was destroyed, he would live on. He would be carried over to the next world, then the world after that, then the world after that. He would never find peace. He reached to pluck a new flower and found that he had unknowingly picked all the flowers before him. The empty stems littered the ground beside the stump like a mass grave. All identical stems lying on top of each other, robbed of their life before their time had really come.

He sighed, turned around, and plucked a new flower from behind the stump. Something pierced his skin, and he hissed. This flower was different that the rest- it had been growing out of the stump's roots, not the soil of the earth. Its petals were as black as night, and the thorns were oozing a substance who's color he couldn't make out. His vision was swimming, and he could feel his breath begin to shorten.

And so his time had come again. Death swooped in to claim him as swiftly, as suddenly, and as unnaturally as the falling of a bandit's blade. He fell off the stump, his body shutting down from the powerful poison of the plant. He would soon begin to rot, the animals would eat his carcass, and even the bones would be taken away and gnawed for the marrow within. There would be nothing left of him on the earth. He could sense the Goddesses waiting for him, waiting for his soul to stumble away from his body, disoriented and confused. They would snatch him up like huntresses trap the fleeing rabbit, and they would store him until they felt the time had come for him to roam the earth once more. He knew he shouldn't hate them; rationally, he knew that it wasn't the Goddesses' fault. They had the world's best interests at heart, and they were acting for the good of people everywhere and everywhen. Yet, his anger at his situation had to be directed at someone. It was hard to be angry at such an abstract notion as circumstance. And so, the last thing to pass from his lips was a curse on the Goddesses.

Even if the world were to end, he would still continue on. His soul and his spirit would live on, even after the land of Hyrule was less than legend, less than myth, less than a memory. The immortal Goddesses would keep him for all time, to be reborn again and again to fight the neverending tide of evil that continually rose up to snuff out the light of good. He was fighting a war that could never be won, only prolonged, and he would fight it forevermore. This was the last thing on his mind when he died, the knowledge that he would never rest. His last breath a curse on his fate, Link passed from the world of the living to be caught by the hand of the Goddesses and stored for another couple of decades. When they saw fit, they would release him back into the world. He would be reborn, and he would choose to fight the present evil, whether ancient or new, and he would not stop until the innocent of the world were safe. Then, when his task was again finished, the Goddesses would slay him and catch his soul.

As it had once been, so it was again, and so it will continue to be, even after the end of the world.


End file.
